Donald Trump’s pattern: Ridicule first, praise later

Rick Perry “put glasses on so people will think he’s smart,” Donald Trump said last summer of his then-GOP rival. “And it just doesn’t work! People can see through the glasses.”

Perry, the former Texas governor, said of Trump: “A man too arrogant, too self-absorbed, to seek God’s forgiveness is precisely the type of leader John Adams prayed would never occupy the White House.”

None of that matters now. Trump has picked Perry for secretary of energy.

The president-elect hasn’t called a bona fide news conference since July 27 when he said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing.”

Politicians like to have things both ways. Should he decide to brave questions, Trump might be called on to reconcile what he said before with what’s happening now.

Clearly, many of his declarations from the campaign are no longer supposed to matter.